Neil Hanson - The Custom of the Sea

He stalled and stonewalled Laverty, then promised to consider his request over lunch and left for his club. When he returned, ninety minutes later, Laverty was still waiting. He had watched Cheesman’s interview with the men with a dismay bordering on contempt. The shipping master might have been willing to turn an indulgent or blind eye to some of the lawless ways of the seafaring community — it was even whispered that he took a share of the proceeds of smuggling and wrecking — but Laverty was made of sterner stuff. He had learned to live with the opprobrium of his fellow men. Brought up to a stern and unbending Wesleyan creed in a small community on Bodmin Moor, he saw Falmouth as a sink into which all the depravity, licentiousness and criminality of the county drained as surely as the streams and rivers flowed into Carrick Roads.

Cheesman might look out from his window overlooking the harbour with the proud, paternal gaze of one who saw profit for his community — and himself — in the ships dotting the water, and the agents, traders, watermen and stevedores crowding the wharves, but Laverty’s baleful gaze saw only a miasma of corruption emanating from the harbour he policed, like the mist hanging over the water. Footpads, cutpurses, whores, smugglers, river pirates and thieves, they would steal the goods from the wharves, the cargo from ships’ holds, and even the ropes and rigging from the masts. When there were no outsiders to rob, they preyed on each other.

Small wonder, then, that even murderers convicted out of their own mouths should be treated like heroes, while those who sought to bring them to justice were reviled. But if Cheesman and that other over-stuffed member of his club, Liddicoat, showed any reluctance to do their duty, Laverty would compel them.

After another hour of fruitless argument with Liddicoat, Laverty switched his attack and returned to the Customs House. There he pressured Cheesman into sending a further cable to the Board of Trade and the registrar-general of shipping: ‘PLEASE REPLY TO MY TELEGRAM RESPECTING MIGNONETTE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AS THE MASTER AND CREW ARE ANXIOUS TO LEAVE FALMOUTH.’

The replies were swift but contradictory. The registrar-general of shipping cabled back at once: ‘SURVIVORS SHOULD ALL BE DETAINED, BUT YOU WILL NO DOUBT RECEIVE INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE BOARD OF TRADE.’

When it replied a few minutes later, the Board of Trade counselled that no action should be taken, though they also sent a copy of Cheesman’s cable to the Home Office, the ultimate authority in matters of law and order. By the time it arrived there, it was mid-afternoon, and the thoughts of the Home Office civil servants were already turning to the weekend.

No reply was sent that day, but the indefatigable Sergeant Laverty had already returned to Henry Liddicoat. After being hectored for a further hour, he finally secured his own departure for the weekend by signing a warrant for the arrest of Tom Dudley, Edwin Stephens and Edmund Brooks.

In celebration of their safe return from their ordeal, the superintendent of the Sailors’ Home, Captain Jose, had cooked a substantial meal for the three men. ‘The finest dinner we have had for many a long day,’ Brooks said, refilling his plate. ‘I never thought to eat such food again.’

Captain Jose had lit a fire against the chill of the September afternoon and the men sat around it drinking strong, sweetened tea as they waited with increasing impatience for permission to leave Falmouth. Late that afternoon, as the setting sun was casting the harbour front into shadow, they heard loud voices and the pounding of heavy boots on the cobbles outside.

‘At last,’ Tom said. He paused with his cup half-way to his mouth and turned towards the door. Sergeant Laverty strode in, followed by two special constables. Their ruddy faces, calloused hands and ill-fitting uniforms suggested that they had been pulled from the quayside or the farmyard to do their duty.

Laverty stood in front of the three men and drew himself up to his full height. ‘Thomas Dudley, Edwin Stephens, Edmund Brooks, you are under arrest.’

Tom’s cup fell from his fingers and shattered on the floor. ‘Arrest? On what charge? What have we done?’

Laverty’s moustache seemed to bristle with indignation. ‘The charge is murder, the murder of Richard Parker.’

‘But we are innocent,’ Tom said. ‘We have done nothing wrong.’

‘That is for the justices to decide.’

They were hustled down the steps and marched through the streets in the gathering dusk. As they passed the telegraph office, Tom held up a hand. ‘At least let me send word to my wife, I beg of you. She is expecting me at home tonight.’

Laverty hesitated, as if suspecting a trick. ‘Very well, then. Be sharp.’

Tom sent a final terse telegram to his wife. ‘SHALL NOT BE ABLE TO COME HOME TONIGHT UNTIL THINGS ARE SETTLED HERE.’

Tom, Brooks and Stephens stood in a line before the high counter of the borough police station as their meagre possessions were taken from them and recorded in the ledger in a clerk’s spidery copperplate.

The constables took them down a steep flight of stone steps into the dank cellars of the building. The walls glistened with damp. A row of six oak doors opened off the central corridor. The three men were pushed into a cell and the door banged shut behind them with a thud that reverberated from the bare stone walls.

Four plank beds, little more than shelves, protruded from the walls. There were no mattresses, only a single coarse blanket for each man. A rusty bucket covered with a piece of torn sacking stood in a corner. There was no other furniture and the only light was the dim glow of a lantern burning in the corridor, seeping through the barred grating in the door.

‘Why have they arrested us?’ Tom said. ‘We have done nothing wrong.’

‘We should have kept our mouths shut as I warned you,’ Brooks said. ‘We could still change our story.’

‘You would have me lie on oath?’ Tom said.

‘There are worse crimes. And who would know?’

‘God would know. I will not lie.’

Brooks narrowed his eyes as he stared at him, as if squinting into the sun. ‘If the truth would hang you and a lie would save your neck, would you still tell the truth?’

‘We have nothing to fear from the truth,’ Tom said.

Brooks swung away from him. ‘And what say you, Stephens?’

The mate was silent for a moment. ‘The captain is right. We have done nothing wrong. All we have done is to follow the custom of the sea, like many men before us.’ Hesitant at first, his voice grew in conviction as he spoke. ‘If we speak the truth and stand together, we have nothing to fear.’

Brooks spat on the floor, walked across the cell and threw himself down on a bunk.

Tom remained motionless, his gaze fixed on him. ‘Are you persuaded of this, Brooks? Are we of one mind?’

Brooks did not reply.

‘I ask you again. Do we stand together?’

Brooks raised himself on one elbow and stared back at him. ‘Aye, we stand together. Damn fools, all of us.’

A few moments later they heard Laverty’s voice as he ran down the steps, cursing his constables. ‘Have you learned nothing? Do you have straw between those ears?’

The cell door was thrown open again. ‘Two of you, out,’ Laverty said.

Tom and Stephens were led out and pushed into different cells. For over four months the three men had lived so close they smelt each other’s sweat, heard the faintest whisper, saw each other at their lowest ebb. Now they were alone, separated by stone walls and stout oak doors.

Tom paced the cell for some time, hobbling backwards and forwards over the cold stone flags. Only twelve hours before he had blessed the feel of English earth under his feet and thanked God that their ordeal was at an end. He sank to his knees beside the bunk and offered up a prayer for himself and his family. Then he hauled himself upright, holding on to the bunk for support, lay down and closed his eyes. The only sound in the darkness was the drip of water from the slimy walls.